Cleary Helps Steer Google to $1 Billion Waze Deal

Internet services and search giant Google didn't have to look hard for a firm to handle its proposed $1 billion acquisition of Israeli map software provider Waze that could receive stiff antitrust scrutiny. Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton is again advising Google on a major M&A deal, with Gunderson Dettmer and two top Israeli firms also working on the matter.

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, which has handled several major M&A deals for Google over the past few years, is taking the lead advising the Mountain View, California&#150;based company on its bid to buy Waze, a social mapping service founded in 2008 that is based in Palo Alto and Ra’anana, Israel, and taps into real-time data provided by users to help drivers avoid traffic tie-ups.

Goldfarb Seligman & Co., the product of a 2011 merger between two leading local shops that is now one of Israel’s largest firms, is providing Israeli counsel to Google through executive committee member and international corporate head Ashok Chandrasekhar and corporate partner Ido Zemach. But Google’s proposed purchase of Waze could still go off-road if it hits regulatory bumps.

Google’s Drummond and Walker did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Google has retained additional antitrust counsel to supplement Cleary’s lead deal counsel role on the Waze transaction.

But Cleary has the requisite regulatory expertise to push through such a transaction. The Am Law Daily reported in December on Cleary’s role advising Google on its $2.35 billion sale of subsidiary Motorola Mobility’s set-top business to the Arris Group. The terms of that deal called for Google to retain a 15.7 percent stake in the unit, which the search giant acquired as part of its Motorola Mobility buy in 2011.

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